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Teachers at Green Dot New York Charter School are getting a raise, a bonus, and a little less job security.

These are some of the modifications that are set to appear in a two-year renewal of Green Dot’s landmark contract with the United Federation of Teachers. Green Dot offered its teachers a 28-page “thin contract” a year after the school opened in 2008, leaving out many of the work rules and policies – including tenure and seniority-based layoffs – that are found in the bulky union deal with the Department of Education.

That contract expired in August and Green Dot and union officials have spent the last few months hammering out a new version. It was tentatively approved by board members on Sept. 26, but details of the contract had not been shared with teachers until this week.

In a statement issued today, the chief negotiators, Leo Casey, a UFT vice president, and Gideon Stein, who serves on the school’s Board of Trustees, shared details of the contract.

Under the new terms, the staff will receive a 3 percent raise each of the next two years, amounting to what will be 20 percent above the current salaries in the Department of Education. Last year’s teachers will also receive a $2000 bonus because of the school’s high performance. The school’s first students are now seniors so graduation data isn’t available, but 95 percent of students have passed the Regents exams they have taken, according to the Green Dot web site.

“The teachers and other staff are being paid more in recognition of being part of a very successful school,” Stein said.

In one concession, teachers will no longer be able to use an independent grievance process in their first year. Instead, they can be fired any time during their first year for any reason. Once the first year is complete, any grievance would return to being handled by an independent arbiter.

“It pretty much gave us what we wanted,” said an employee at the school, who asked not to be identified because teachers are restricted from speaking publicly about the agreement until it is official. “The only area where we had to cave was the protection for first year teachers.”

In another interesting tweak, Green Dot teachers will soon be evaluated based on a system that complies with the state education department’s Race to the Top application. The DOE’s favored system, the Danielson framework, is currently being used in 33 schools, but so far the city and union have not come to an agreement about whether it could spread to the rest of the DOE schools as well.

The renewed partnership between Green Dot New York and the UFT comes at a time when the teachers’ union is making slow inroads at organizing charter schools.

Of the 14 schools in its charter school portfolio, six converted from district schools meaning that by law teachers remained in the UFT. At most of the other eight schools, teachers organized on their own. The UFT’s charter schools opened with unionized teachers.

Five charter schools remain without contracts, including three – Bronx Academy of Promise, Merrick Academy and New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering & Construction Industries – that have been without contracts for more than two years. In an interview last week, Casey said that those schools are in the final stages of ratification and should have contracts in place soon.

“The first contract always takes the most amount of energy in terms of negotiations,” Casey said. “You’re starting all sorts of things from scratch.”

Many of the unionized charter schools struggled academically, both before and after the vote to unionize. According to the latest progress reports, eight of the unionized middle and elementary school scored a C or lower.

The latest developments come at a time when the UFT is boosting efforts to recruit teachers working for charter schools. This weekend, it is hosting a conference for charter school educators to discuss the goal of establishing a more of a union presence in charter schools. The event will also feature a panel with Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot Public Schools.

The contract still has to be finalized, after which it will be brought to the school staff for official ratification. UFT chapter leaders at the school officially recommended that their colleagues vote to approve the contract in a meeting on Wednesday.

ARTICLE COMMENTS

Jdbalthazar

Listen UFT members wake the F-up!!! Leo Casey makes about $200,000 a year, the UFT doesn’t pull that much money in from all 14 charter schools Union dues in an entire year! The UFT is garbage! They simply want more union dues for doing NOTHING! Where’s the contract for the people who really pay the bills? NYC public education teachers pay for Mulgrew and Casey and all the other UFT fat cats! Where’s our contract?

3+ years now without a raise! 2-years since our last contract expired! Not one article in the UFT paper, not one word from the bald loser we call a president.

Jdbalthazar

What does the UFT care if they lose protections…less work for them to do…and they don’t do much!

guest

You left out that they are increasing the union dues (again) but still no contract. I hate when Leo speaks at meetings.

Torys

Every single teacher throughout Nassau and Westchester makes 20-25% more than a NYC teacher…..and they didnt have to give up protections…….This also includes Yonkers, an urban district as well…..they didnt have to give up anything to get 25% more than NYC teachers……so why is GS writing about Green Dot; Yonkers would seem like a better comparison or Mt. Vernon or Hempstead……Why dont we hear about how big their contracts are ? I think its way more than 28 pages……

Vipny

Decker,
You have your facts wrong. First year teachers did not lose the ability to access the grievance process. They can appeal to the Board of Trustees. This is only a pilot program.

Dog12hight

This guy does this all the time. Never checks his facts. I guess that’s the level that Gotham accepts.

Old F@rt.

Those Geen Dot teachers are signing their own death certificates, just like the UFT did with the 2005 contract. Money means nothing when you can be sh*t canned for no meaningful reason. Sorry to see this happen to ya’.

Frankpeanuts

who cares about grieving to the board when they can’t go to arbitration. decker didn’t get his facts wrong, the teachers gave up a protection. btw, this ain’t no pilot program.

Dst10teach

I believe there is a difference here- I have heard that there are teachers and union folks on the Board which would enhance the due process system going to the Board. Regardless of arbitration being absent in ONLY the first year (from what I was told this only extends through the life of this contract then reverts ) this is still the strongest due process system in the country (including the UFT/DOE CBA). But then this doesn’t make for a very good story.

Teach4life21

What Leo has done in the defense and advancement of teachers, students, and education far surpasses any salary that he might or might not get. Don’t hate.

Smith

I’ve read the UFT contract and haven’t found it to be “bulky” with work rules and policies. Can you be more specific about what’s not in the Green Dot contract?

Guest

What percentage raise have nyc teachers recieved in the last 10 years? I wouldn’t say they have done nothing.

Your writing is long on hyperobole and short on facts.

Jdbalthazar

I don’t hate Leo Casey, don’t change the subject…plus what has Leo Casey really done? I hate the UFT and their never ending search for more people to pay dues…which leads to a huge Union that does not work for anyone, especially NYC public school teachers!

Anyway the point was true and remains true…all Unionized charter schools dues for a year don’t cover Leo Casey’s salary for one year. He should be working on our contract(public school teachers)!

Flerp

you should apply at a westchester school.

Flerp

The sentence doesn’t say the UFT contract is “bulky with work rules and policies.” It says the contract is “bulky” and says that the Green Dot contract lacks many of the work rules and policies that are found in the “bulky” UFT contract. But in any event, the UFT contract is about 160 pages or so, and consists mainly of what this article characterizes as “work rules” or “work policies.”

Ken Hirsh

The main document is 165 pages. (I don’t have time to count the related and referenced documents.) I randomly selected some “bulk” below from page 86.

How many pages are the unilaterally determined “employee handbooks” at charters? from what I hear of success/ex-success teachers, there’s no shortage of “work rules” –they just aren’t collectively bargained.

Smith

Exactly my point. The Green Dot isn’t less bulky (or at least you and Geoff haven’t provided evidence), the school is just quite a bit smaller than the public school system and has a much narrower scope. They don’t have a bowling team and therefore don’t have a need to negotiate how many hours the bowling coaches are paid for. For all we know, their language on termination might even be “bulkier” than the tenure language in the citywide contract.

Clearly, this post was feeding the myth, without providing evidence, that public schools are difficult to run because of “work rules” that constrain the principals ability manage them. Am I supposed to be impressed that Green Dot doesn’t have two pages of adult education salary schedules? Or are there substantive differences between these two contracts?

Smith

Vipny, Wal Mart employees can probably “appeal” to their Board of Trustees. It means nothing.

Ken Hirsh

Here are some from pages 14 and 15. Let me know if you’d like more. There must be hundreds. Then we could review the union-backed legislation. Or the NYSED regulations. There’s plenty of bulk for the rule-lovers.

“The school day for teachers serving in the schools shall be six hours and 20 minutes…”

“The parties agreed… to extend the teacher work day… by an additional 37.5 minutes per day, Monday through Thursday following student dismissal… the day will end no later than 3:45pm.””Existing faculty and grade conference time should be used for professional development.””On professional development days, the school day shall be 6 hours and 50 minutes.””In order to ensure that the maximum number of students is not exceeded there will be an expedited arbitration procedure to allow the UFT to seek both a cease and desist order as well as monetary penalties for exceeding the small group instruction size limit. The procedure is set forth in Article 22B6 and 22G.”

Ken Hirsh

A bit of page 16 perhaps?

“No later than 60 days before the end of the term, program preference sheets should be distributed to all teachers. Where advisable and feasible, preference with respect to subparagraphs a through g below will be honored to the extent consistent with the provisions of this Agreement relating to rotation and programming.”

“The number of lesson preparations should be kept at the minimum consistent with the nature of the subject, the size of the department… and special requests of teachers.”

“No later than the end of the next to the last school day of the term, teachers should receive their building programs for the following term, including the the periods and rooms where their teaching assignments occur.”

Ken Hirsh

Here’s some non-bulky, non-work-rules that are cleverly disguised as bulky work-rules on page 17:

“In the matters of teaching, special, honor, and modified classes the policy of rotation of qualified persons should be followed insofar as possible. It is understood, however, that requests by teachers of industrial arts/technology education, home economics/home and career skills, and trade subjects to retain their shop subjects and rooms should be honored when not inconsistent with the needs of the school. The following procedures will apply to shop openings:…”

“Each spring the principal and UFT chapter committee shall meet to review the compensatory time positions in the school with the goal of agreeing upon the number of, responsibilities, qualifications, basis for selection and term for compensatory time positions in their school.”

Jmerrow

How many pages is the contract?

Smith

Ken, I get the impression you’re counting words, rather than their actual effects.

Aside from the length of time spent in school, this doesn’t seem like much. Should I assume the Green Dot contract is silent on the other issues you raised? If so, I can sum it up in a few words: The UFT contract has some weak language on programs and scheduling, Green Dot has none. Is that all?